EU 21st Century: Catalunya: A Bitter Victory

A Very Strange Election

On Thursday, 21st December 2017 more than 5.5 million eligible residents of Catalunya will cast their votes for the election of a new Parliament for the Catalan Autonomous Community, following the legitimate assembly’s dissolution at the end of October by the Spanish central government.

These elections are important for the inhabitants of the region, and particularly for the ethnic Catalans among them, the majority of whom in the past two years had made clear that they wanted to gain full independence from Madrid.

Tomorrow’s elections, however, are a strange contest of wills. The Spanish government is determined to clip the wings of independence of their Catalan ‘brothers’ and subject them to the central authority. The indepententists, on the other hand, are decided to affirm their right to choose the form of governance of their community.

The three months that have elapsed since the firing of the regional government (‘Generalitat’) and the dissolution of the local parliament, has, however brought supporters and detractors of independence to rethink their respective positions.

The latest polls published this week indicate that the number of those now sceptical of independence may be 68%, while the number of those aspiring at a Free Republic of Catalunya has declined and might not exceed 32% of total votes.

The main reasons for such reversal are economic in nature. The dramatic events at the end of September have damaged local business, with 1,500 companies moving their corporate headquarters to other parts of the country, following incentives given by Madrid and by municipalities in other regions. Trade and tourism have also been hit hard: foreign exchange income has dropped by 70% in the region, compared to the last quarter of 2016. But the Spanish economy has also been impacted—decline of foreign income by 40% in total.

Catalan voters’ opinion has also been influenced by the realisation that the central government is stronger and more ruthless than they had anticipated. But the sadder finding was the lack of support, or even willingness to listen to their point of view, by the major European Institutions—the European Parliament, the European Council and the European Commission—and the indifference to their cause of the United States and NATO. The message, all of a sudden, became loud and clear: no Western power or bloc wants the implosion of the Spanish state—a Euro member and, supposedly, an outer bastion of the Union in its fight against massive illegal immigration from Africa and terrorism.

The elections on 21st December have already been labelled by local editorialists as “the strangest” since 1977—the year of the first free Spanish elections. The leaders of the independence movement have, during the campaign, lost their voice: many are in jail, the rest of the influential ones are fugitives in Brussels. Even if their movement wins, Madrid will never concede to separation, or to wider autonomy.

As one of the senior editorialists of Barcelona’s daily La Vanguardia wrote, referring to the ‘receivables’ of both sides in the election: “Independentists without independence. Unionists without union.”

The ‘day after’ the 21^st December will have a bitter taste. Madrid, by enacting and enforcing in September article 155 of the Spanish Constitution—a provision, which by today’s political thinking is a least democratic one—has lost the ‘hearts and minds’ of the Catalans for generations to come. Its authoritarian style has, perhaps, prevailed for the time being. But deeper dissent and instability may be around the corner.